I would never recommend a live stage performance solely because of the set. Story and performance always take precedence. I will now make an exception to that policy, probably the only time you’ll ever catch me doing that. The design for Seattle Opera’s current production of The Barber of Seville […] Continue reading »

Musicals of any stripe are notoriously difficult to pull off. They’re certainly more difficult than a straight play. This is largely due to so many moving parts, including bookwriter, lyricist, composer, arranger, choreographer, conductor and musicians. When a musical is based on an original story, the creative team starts with […] Continue reading »

The 2018 federal budget proposed by the White House called for the elimination – elimination, not reduction – of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I guess the swamp Trump vowed to drain includes the arts. Last month […] Continue reading »

When actors are learning a role, the most important question they must answer for themselves is “What does my character want in this scene?” Another way they’ll ask that is “What is motivating my character at this moment?” If a character’s want and motivation are lacking, the actor has the misfortune […] Continue reading »

Tonight is a momentous event in the life of an obscure writer. After penning plays for 17 years and having readings and workshops of them, tonight marks the first time a Duane Kelly play is being fully staged. Wunderbar! The play, Das Ende (“The End” in German), involves the composer […] Continue reading »

Advice for artists is a dime a dozen and there’s so much of it to wade through that one could easily be left without any time to create the art. With that caution, this week I share with you six terrific bits of no-nonsense advice I recently came across. The […] Continue reading »

“There is no such thing as a new idea,” Mark Twain observed. “It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making […] Continue reading »

Two things – and likely the only two things – that Neil Gaiman and I have in common are we spend a good bit of time writing and we’ve recently penned works connected to the Norse sagas. Those sagas are prose histories that record events among the Norse and Celtic inhabitants of […] Continue reading »

Writing a straight play (i.e. non-musical), refining the script, and getting it up on stage is a gnashingly difficult process and not for the weak of heart. It requires talent, perseverance, collaboration and luck – more or less in equal measure as far as I can tell. Oh, and to […] Continue reading »

If the estimation of art depended on the personal behavior of those who create it, the world’s artistic heritage would be vastly reduced. We value art for its ability to stimulate us intellectually, move us emotionally, delight us aesthetically; not because its creator is a paragon of virtue. Indeed, many […] Continue reading »